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The Ghost Brigades

As you may recall, I was completely clueless during Gibson’s Neuromancer. Since then, my only visits to the land of sci-fi have been with Scalzi. This guy writes some really cool stuff and it gives me hope that there is other good sci-fi out there that I’ll enjoy.

This is book two of a trilogy. It’s a follow-up to Old Man’s War but revolves around some new characters, so I think you can get away without reading book one, but I wouldn’t suggest it.

It’s roughly the same setting as Old Man’s War. The Colonial Defense Force is protecting the human race from all sorts of non-humans, but the non-humans are getting more organized and pose a more immediate threat than ever before, especially since they are assisted by a treasonous human. To combat this situation, the Colonial Defense Force calls in the Special Forces.

It’s a lot of military sci-fi after that, but also a fair amount of social commentary. Remember that Old Man’s War had a lot of commentary on the horrors of war. This book’s social commentary relates more to governments, their subjects, the choices that each make, and the amount of free will that the common person actually has.